ideas and resources for the global labor movement

September 11, 2009

AFL-CIO Convention: Solidarity with Van Jones?

The attack that drove “green jobs czar” Van Jones from the White
House this week is an attack on labor and on workers’ best hope for
good jobs. If labor wants to promote green jobs, labor should embrace
Van Jones - publicly, loudly, and fast - at the upcoming AFL-CIO Convention.

Van Jones is a proven friend of labor, who has fought to see that
green jobs are good jobs with labor rights and fair labor standards.
If ever there was a time for that old labor slogan “An injury to one is
an injury to all” it is the injury that has been done to Van Jones.
For it is an injury to every American worker who hopes that the crisis
in our economy can be addressed by putting people to work building a
new green economy.

As founder of Green for All and author of the best-seller The Green
Collar Economy, Van Jones put the issue of green jobs on the political
map. Eager to catch the green jobs wave, the Obama administration
brought Van Jones in as “special advisor for green jobs” at the Council
on Environmental Quality. But last month Glenn Beck’s Fox News’ show began dredging
up calumnies from Jones’s past - all information which admittedly had
long been publicly available on the web. (Yes, that’s the Glenn Beck who said
“This president has exposed himself as a guy over and over and over
again who has a deep-seated hatred for white people.”) This Sunday Jones self-sacrificingly resigned to avoid becoming a distraction for the Obama administration.

The campaign against Jones is the tip of the wedge for a far broader
campaign against organized labor, protection of the environment, and
green jobs.

“Workers increasingly believe, for good reason, that unions either
provide little in return for their dues or work against their
interests.”

Kerpen says his defeat of clean-energy legislation is his “No. 1
legislative priority.” His group ran a “Hot Air Tour” under the slogan
“Global Warming Alarmism: Lost Jobs, Higher Taxes, Less Freedom.”

Finally, Kerpen gets to attack both labor and the environment by attacking green jobs:
“Green jobs are not economic jobs but political jobs, designed to
funnel vast sums of taxpayer money to left-wing labor unions,
environmental groups, and social justice community organizers.” Kerpen
and Beck devoted a whole show to “exposing” the union-backed Apollo
Alliance as a sinister conspiracy to unite social justice,
environmental protection, and labor around the green jobs program.

The AFP is the third largest recipient of funding from
the Koch Family Foundations. Before 2003, when the AFP was still named
the Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation, it received $18,460,912 in
funding. 84% of that funding came from the Koch Family Foundations
($12,906,712) and the Scaife Family Foundations ($2,510,000). Koch
Family Foundations is funded by Koch Industries. According to Forbes,
Koch Industries is the second largest privately-held company, and the
largest privately owned energy company, in the United States. Koch
industries has made its money in the oil business, primarily oil
refining. Presently, it holds stakes in pipelines, refineries,
fertilizer, forest products, and chemical technology.

Koch Industries, by the way, employed the union-busting Faegre &
Benson law firm, which, according to its website, specializes in
anti-union campaigns and withdrawing from pension plans.

I stand for an inclusive green economy based in the most
fundamental American values: equality, justice, and opportunity for all.

If labor wants to stand with the green jobs movement — and if it
wants to roll back the right-wing attack on our unions, our
environment, and our green jobs — it should ask Van Jones to launch the
next phase of the green jobs movement by addressing its convention this
week.